|  Forecasting Economic Gloom With Climate Change
CHANGING CLIMATE: Green Party Co-leader Jeanette Fitzsimons is raising awareness of the environmental and economic impacts of climate change, while some groups deny climate change is happening. (The Green Party)
New Zealand has started to experience the effects of climate change, with more floods, landslides and droughts taking their toll on our economy, the Green Party says.
Greens co-leader Jeanette Fitzsimons said New Zealand's economic dependence on agriculture could mean climate change will affect us much more than other countries.
"Weather events are going to effect our production much more than countries that produce in factories," she said.
Recent floods in Manawatu and land slides in Matata were examples of extreme weather events brought about by climate change, she said.
Ms Fitzsimons has been touring the country educating communities about the environmental and economic risks New Zealand will face as climate change takes its toll.
Kiwis - Big Polluters
OECD figures show New Zealand is the fourth worst country in the developed world for greenhouse gas emissions per capita, behind Australia, the United States and Canada.
New Zealand is producing 0.2 percent of the world's Greenhouse gases, but New Zealanders only make up 0.064 percent of the world's population, Ms Fitzsimons said.
"I think that once it really starts to bite it will be used against countries that don't take action," she said.
Global Warming is Not Happening - IPCC Reviewer
Dr Vincent Gray, of Wellington, said the world's temperature has not increased for eight years and New Zealand's temperature has not risen for 100 years.
Dr Gray is the only person in New Zealand who has been an expert reviewer on every draft of the many Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports.
"I don't regard there being any evidence at all that carbon dioxide is having any effect on the climate," he said.
Dr Gray has stopped attending climate change summits, because he said the policy makers are unwilling to listen to anyone who disagrees with their views.
He said it was difficult to determine whether there had been an increase in extreme weather events or whether it was driven by media who seemed to constantly report 100-year-floods and droughts.
"I question the methods they use for determining the probabilities of extreme weather events occurring," he said.
Kyoto Protocol Could Cost NZ Billions
New Zealand will begin implementing legislation to move in line with the Kyoto Protocol from next year.
All OECD countries, except for Australia and China who have not ratified the protocol, have agreed to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions to 5 percent below the level they produced in 1990.
But New Zealand is only required to return to the level of emissions produced in 1990 - but New Zealand's emissions are now 25 percent above what they were in 1990.
Dr Gray said the Kyoto Protocol would have no effect on climate change and the politicians involved were not even measuring the amount of carbon emitted over New Zealand's cities to see whether the measures they will implement will have any effect.
Under New Zealand's obligations of the Kyoto Protocol, if we fail to reduce our emissions by the 2012 deadline, we will either have to produce credits through forestry to cover our shortfall or buy credits from other countries.
"Everything they are doing is knocking our economy down. It will have no effect on the climate," Dr Gray said.
Dairy Industry - Polluting Our Air and Water
The dairy industry makes up roughly one quarter of New Zealand's greenhouse gas emissions and is responsible for severe environmental degradation, Ms Fitzsimons said.
"No one has had the courage in politics to say that it is getting to the stage where we don't have the environmental capacity to continue to grow our dairy industry in New Zealand."
She said nitrates and faecal cloriforms are leaching in to our waterways and now an estimated 95 percent of our lowland rivers are badly polluted. It has come to the point where many of our rivers are no longer safe to swim in, she said.
She said Fonterra wants to increase milk production by 4 percent a year, which would double the size of the dairy industry by 2024.
Government Action
The Minister responsible for Climate Change Issues, David Parker, will promote New Zealand's interests around agriculture as he attends climate change negotiations in Sweden this week.
Mr Parker will join representatives from China, the US, Brazil, several EU member states, Japan, South Africa and Indonesia.
"There are differing views on the way forward. . . I'll also be looking out for New Zealand's interests, particularly around agriculture. Reducing agricultural emissions is challenging and New Zealand is playing a constructive and leading role in this.
"The more countries that agree to a post-2012 regime the more effective emissions reductions efforts become, and the less competitiveness will be put at risk," Mr Parker said.
http://en.epochtimes.com/news/7-6-10/56338.html
|
